Week In Review
INSURGENT Review!
Stacking the Shelves & Blogspiration!
Demons At Deadnight Teaser Tuesday!
UNRAVELING Review!
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w/ Parajunkee & Alison Can Read
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Q: Summer Break is upon us! What would be the perfect vacation spot for you to catch up on your reading & relax?
Well HOW PERFECT IS THIS QUESTION?! As it happens, I am leaving for a week at the beach in OBX (that’s the Outer Banks for you non-East Coast’rs) in North Carolina, on Sunday! So right now, that is my perfect vacation spot. My friends and I went in together on a beach house (with a pool and hot tub!) for a week and you’d be surprised how inexpensive it really is, compared to getting a hotel. I also grew up only 45 minutes north of there, so I’ll use the opportunity to visit my friends back home. All in all, the friends’ kids will be running around, the adults will be able to have fun, and it’s just going to be great all around. AND YEAH, I’LL BE READING, TOO.
Where would you vacation?
One choice can transform you—or it can destroy you. But every choice has consequences, and as unrest surges in the factions all around her, Tris Prior must continue trying to save those she loves—and herself—while grappling with haunting questions of grief and forgiveness, identity and loyalty, politics and love.
Tris’s initiation day should have been marked by celebration and victory with her chosen faction; instead, the day ended with unspeakable horrors. War now looms as conflict between the factions and their ideologies grows. And in times of war, sides must be chosen, secrets will emerge, and choices will become even more irrevocable—and even more powerful. Transformed by her own decisions but also by haunting grief and guilt, radical new discoveries, and shifting relationships, Tris must fully embrace her Divergence, even if she does not know what she may lose by doing so.
Review
**Warning: This review contains spoilers from the first book in the series, Divergent.
I hope I can deliver a review that is (somewhat) original in thought and idea, seeing as how most everything about this book has probably been covered already.
I loved Insurgent…but I didn’t love it quite as much as I loved Divergent. In Divergent, Tris is faced with choices and she makes deliberate, clear-headed decisions about the direction her life is taking. She and Four fall for each other, evident in his saving her from being thrown over the edge during her initiation, the small touches they share and the glances they spare each other. They are sensitive and trusting with each other, in a world where that doesn’t really exist. But in Insurgent, everything changes. And I felt like those changes caused Tris to make brash, and dangerous, decisions. Very unlike the Tris we got to know in Divergent. Can circumstances change a person that much…and that quickly?
If you like a lot of action in your books, Insurgent is full of it, much more so than Divergent, where you really only feel the presence of a threat. Insurgent felt like every other page had a fighting sequence, and there is Tris, kicking ass and taking names. Veronica Roth does a good job making brainiacs into evil, mind-twisted villains. But, in my experience, a villain is never a villain just to be one…so what was Jeanine’s true agenda? She was absolutely fascinating to me. I knew she was evil, but at the same time, was she really? What do you think?
I didn’t like where the Tris/Four relationship went. It made me uncomfortable. I liked the relationship they had before, and this new one didn’t sit well with me. But I suppose, in a way, Insurgent was meant to be an uncomfortable book, because it addresses uncomfortable themes, like oppression, war and betrayal. Speaking of the betrayal…THAT blew my mind. As in *poof* and gone. I really didn’t see that coming, or think he was capable of it. But I guess…”Faction Before Blood.”
We found out in Divergent that Marcus beat Tobias so badly, he chose Dauntless to escape him. Jeanine created a killing army for another purpose (I don’t want to name it, since it’s quite a bit spoilery). And all of this at what cost? So my question to you, those who have read the book, is: does the end justify the means?
Speaking of the army, the scene where Tris and Company are trying to get into the school…that was executed perfectly. I envisioned it all in my head, the movements in sync, the falling objects, the violence. I think that scene, above all the rest (besides the ending of course) sticks in my head the most.
Once I got to the ending and The Big Reveal took place (ie – the information everyone was after to either destroy or safeguard from Divergent) (btw, also *poof* BLEW MY MIND), I realized how much Insurgent was like a dark mish-mashed version of a certain Jim Carrey movie and one M. Night Shmyalan movie. Those of you who have read the books and seen the movies know which ones I’m talking about. It’s a TOTAL GAMECHANGER. This series…it isn’t heading where I thought it was, because it isn’t what I thought it would be.
When an author can achieve THAT kind of twist through not one, but TWO novels, you’ve won my heart.
Quote
“Do remember, though, that sometimes the people you oppress become mightier than you would like.”
Book Info
Publisher: HarperTeen
Publish Date: May 2012
Series: Divergent #2
ISBN13: 9780007442911
Genre: Dystopian/Young Adult
Ages: 14 & up for some violence
Other Reviews: Pretty Books | Hitting On Girls In Bookstores
Connect with Veronica Roth
Facebook | Goodreads | Blog | Twitter
What are you waiting for? Go buy it!
Amazon | Kindle | Barnes & Noble | Nook | Book Depository
Extra Info: WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU HAVEN’T READ DIVERGENT YET?
Amazon | Kindle | Barnes & Noble | Nook | Book Depository
Books like this: Pandemonium by Lauren Oliver | Crossed by Ally Condie
Two days before the start of her junior year, seventeen-year-old Janelle Tenner is hit by a pickup truck and killed—as in blinding light, scenes of her life flashing before her, and then nothing. Except the next thing she knows, she’s opening her eyes to find Ben Michaels, a loner from her high school whom Janelle has never talked to, leaning over her. And even though it isn’t possible, she knows—with every fiber of her being—that Ben has somehow brought her back to life.
But her revival, and Ben’s possible role in it, is only the first of the puzzles that Janelle must solve. While snooping in her FBI agent father’s files for clues about her accident, she uncovers a clock that seems to be counting down to something—but to what? And when someone close to Janelle is killed, she can no longer deny what’s right in front of her: Everything that’s happened—the accident, the murder, the countdown clock, Ben’s sudden appearance in her life—points to the end of life as she knows it. And as the clock ticks down, she realizes that if she wants to put a stop to the end of the world, she’s going to need to uncover Ben’s secrets—and keep from falling in love with him in the process.
Review
Holy baby JESUS, UNRAVELING may be the best book I’ve read this year, HANDS DOWN. I don’t even know where to start: what was wrong with it? NOTHING. Nothing was wrong with it. I couldn’t find a single thing to dislike about it and I will wave this book around as one of the BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR…because it is that good. It will make you laugh, it will make you cry. And you will end it caring about Norris’ characters as if you knew them…as if they were your friends, too.
I’m not even sure where to begin without gushing. UNRAVELING is instantly a captivating book with witty narrative between the main character, Janelle, and everyone around her. Life hasn’t dealt her the kindest hand, and yet she still somehow seems to make it work for herself, despite having a busy father, a mother with a medical issue and a memory she’d rather forget. She’s smart, she’s got integrity and is working hard toward her future.
Then she dies.
And then she’s brought back to life by a guy she’s never spared more than a second to think about.
Seriously, WTF? WHAT THE – I’m not kidding, you guys, this book seriously BLEW MY MIND LIKE MULTIPLE TIMES. Like, poof! and gone. Elizabeth Norris has created this world that is just amazing and includes things that made my head spin. Like quantum physics and…other stuff I probably didn’t pronounce right in my head. There is end-of-the-world sh*t in here and colliding – ugh, I don’t want to give anything away, so I have to stop. Norris made everything completely believable, something that’s just so hard to do in Science-Fiction. And yet somehow she does.
She developed profound character relationships. Janelle’s relationships with her family were…REAL. Without a doubt, I felt them like she did. The laughter, the heartbreak, EVERYTHING. I loved that instead of a love triangle in UNRAVELING, Norris focused instead on a relationship and a very good platonic friendship between Janelle and Alex, her BFF since Kindergarten. I got a real sense for all the characters in it, instead of some and not others. I loved them all, but I especially loved Janelle.
I don’t know what more I can say about this. I don’t want to give away a single plot arc or storyline, because I thought the best parts about this book were the surprises on every other page. When I say it blew my mind, I’m not kidding. I often paused to “double-u-tee-eff” myself and “OMG!” to my boyfriend (poor guy, he had no idea what I was talking about). All I can say to you is, if you don’t read UNRAVELING, you will have missed one helluva story. It literally UNRAVELED my brain.
Quote
His eyes are red, like they were bleeding when he died, and when I take another couple of steps to see him at a better angle, I realize it’s not just his skin, but also his bones that look melted – because I can see his skeleton, and the bones look like they’re dripping – like a Salvador Dali painting come to life.
And check out the UNRAVELING book trailer!
Book Info
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Publish Date: April 2012
Series: UNRAVELING #1
ISBN13: 9780062103734
Genre: Young Adult/Science Fiction
Ages: 16 & up for mild violence and bad language
Second Opinions: A Cupcake and a Latte | Icey Books
Connect with Elizabeth Norris
Goodreads | Blog | Twitter
What are you waiting for? Go buy it!
Kindle | Nook | Book Depository
Disclaimers: This ARC provided by the publisher in exchange of an honest review. Quote may have changed with final copy. Blurb and photosource courtesy of Goodreads.
Books like this: ULTRAVIOLET by R.J. Anderson (for science fiction themes)
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